An aortic aneurysm effects nearly 200,000 Americans annually and presents a significant risk of mortality to a patient. Death often occurs when the aneurysm ruptures. Open, invasive, elective surgery to repair an aortic aneurysm also presents a significant risk of mortality and has been reported to be in the two to three percent. As a result, minimally invasive surgical repair of aortic aneurysms are highly desirable and are preferred. An endovascular graft prosthesis of this kind and provided with a prosthetic device of the above kind is known from EP 0539237. This graft prosthesis has a main body connected to two graft limbs. During introduction all three elements of the prosthesis have to be placed inside a catheter with the consequence that the catheter must have a large diameter, which makes true percutaneous insertion into the femoral arteries impossible. It is also a disadvantage that the frame body of the prosthetic device is covered by the cranial end of the graft main body on its periphery, because the graft main body restricts the maximum radial expansion of the frame body and thus limits the radial pressure of the frame body on the aorta.
W095/16406 discloses another endovascular graft prosthesis for abdominal aorta aneurysm repair comprising a bag-shaped graft main body and two graft limbs which are separately femorally introduced and inserted through outlet openings in the bottom of the bag-shaped main body and mounted inside the bag. The frame body of the prosthetic device is also in this case on its periphery covered by the cranial end of the graft main body, and in the radially compressed shape of the frame body the surrounding graft material is positioned outside the frame body adding to the diameter of the compressed device, and thus requiring a larger sized introducer catheter. Furthermore, when the limbs are to be positioned it may be difficult to catch the outlet openings in the loosely downhanging lower portion of the bag.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,316,023 suggests a method for repairing an abdominal aorta aneurysm by femorally advancing one tube through each iliac artery and positioning the cranial ends of the tubes in the aorta upstream of the aneurysm, whereupon inflatable balloons are used to expand said cranial ends into contact with each other and the aorta. The expanded tube ends are at risk of creating an incomplete blockage of the blood flow to the aneurysm, in particular in two wedge-shaped areas positioned at opposite sides of the central area of contact between the two tubes.
An abdominal aorta aneurysm requiring repair is a serious and often deadly condition found in patients who are often already weakened by other conditions. The existing minimally invasive techniques for aorta aneurysm repair are only capable of treating from 20 to 30 percent of the total discovered conditions requiring repair, and the failure rate is too high when repair is sought with aid from existing techniques. One particular problem with prior art endovascular graft prosthesis is the risks of leaks of blood past the cranial graft end into the aneurysm. Such leaks may be caused by incomplete occlusion of the aorta lumen when the graft prosthesis is initially mounted in the aorta or may be caused by lacking ability of the graft prosthesis to continuously block for blood leaks past the full periphery of the cranial graft end during a time span of hours or days following the mounting of the graft prosthesis.